


When Can I See You Again?

by patchworkgirl



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breakfast, Destiny, Ficlet, Flashbacks, M/M, One Shot, grim reaping, taako's hat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11749776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworkgirl/pseuds/patchworkgirl
Summary: Meet cute is overrated and all, but maybe our favorite grim reaper didn't precisely meet his true love yelling "Hey thug what's your name I'm about to tentacle your dick!" What about... meet sad? But then everything's fine.





	When Can I See You Again?

It wasn't really a bounty hunter's case, not properly. There was no clear evidence of crimes against the laws of life and death, no known necromantic and lichly activity. But there was nothing big going on at the moment, and the Raven Queen had been... cautious, since the wars. A decade or so didn't mean much to a deity. Forty deaths, violent and unexpected, no natural disaster or bandits nearby the blame. Unusual. And such a tragedy, small though it might be in the great scheme of things, left a scar in the arcane fabric of the world.

Still, had there been anything interesting going on, Kravitz would never have been sent, and there didn't seem to be anything alarming on the ground. He'd completed his circuit, exchanged nods with some of the rank and file staff, and spent a few moments watching the departing dead, none of them ready, most unwilling. It'd be a headache for someone, but there was a reason he didn't have a desk job.

He was ready to leave when his eyes fell on one of the few living bodies still at the scene. Sort of. Being in the employ of a goddess made spatial relationships on the material plane somewhat malleable. Still intent on the scene, still emotionally locked on it, but not the way that family and friends in mourning seemed to be. That was a simple pattern that repeated too constantly across reaping jobs to be interesting.

Elf. Young—though they always seemed young, until that strange moment when they were old all of a sudden. Pretty, and they sure as fuck were usually that. But it was a plastic, samey kind of prettiness most of the time, all ethereal elegance and fine-boned delicacy.

(There was more spite in that thought than Kravitz was absolutely comfortable with. Not often he was revisited by the resentments of his distant and dreamy mortal life. But some part of him still felt the distance and disdain of his mother's side of the family, the casual cruelty that not even the half humans met with, or not when his more orcish features were around as a distraction.)

This one wasn't _just_ an elf. Sure, those cheekbones could cut glass, the jawline deserved an epic poem or two, the dark eyes were ancient in that endlessly young face. Elf stuff. But the face was too sharp, the eyes too hard. He seemed to be carved from marble, but by a mad, inspired sculptor who'd tumbled soft, thick hair forward, escaping its braid in wild cowlicks, touched those flawless cheeks with a sprinkle of freckles, dressed him in wildly clashing layers of blue and red skirts and heeled boots that added neatly to an already considerable height.

Maybe Kravitz was a sketchy bastard for noticing prettiness at a moment like this, but it wasn't like he got out a lot. And maybe anyone who thought so could eat his entire ass, because he'd like to see this hypothetical sanctimonious shitheel get an eyeful of this perfect marriage of elemental chaos and ordered perfection, bursting with untapped power and caught by the wind, and keep their atttention soberly on the job.

There were no defiant souls, no liches, no real need for his attention. Kravitz disengaged from the disaster and let himself ogle a little. Which was when he saw the elf crying.

It was the oddest thing. The expression was otherwise blank and aloof, and he was muttering to himself, a barely intelligible series of nouns that seemed mostly to involve food. He didn't seem to know there were tears streaming down his stupid, pretty face, wetting down escaped strands of hair and dripping into his silly scarf. He stood in the back of a wagon that clattered at unwise speeds down the bumpy road, adjusting his stance with a predatory grace as the boards jumped and jostled beneath him, but at least he seemed to be aware he was catching himself at the edge of falling face first into the road.

Kravitz wasn't sure how long he'd been staring when he noticed something even odder. The elf turned every so often. The grim reaper had observed enough mortals in emotional extremis (and, if he was being honest, remembered being one clearly enough) to recognize someone looking for support. They were tiny little movements, barely perceptible as the wagon rattled over mud and potholes, but the elf was looking for someone he expected to be there. He never turned toward the silent, twitchy driver, just a little to his left. Whoever was supposed to be there, he never found.

A particularly nasty jolt just about pitched him over the side, and while he caught himself on the wagon's railing, his hat kept going. It was a ridiculous thing, bent and buckled and massive, a little much even for a self-important wizard. And it perfectly completed the brilliant ensemble. And it disheveled hair and smeared tears as it fell.

Kravitz reached out absently and tapped the end of his scythe against the brim. The tiniest little interaction with this boring little plane, a split second's nudge that only just kept the hat on long enough for the elf to snatch it with one hand and jam it into place. Kravitz didn't stay long enough to see him right the hat, or the little smudge of inky blackness that slowly faded into the palimpsest of runes worked into the fabric. It faded in its own time. The reaper had already sliced his way home, an excuse for tardiness that no one asked for ready on his lips.

 

_“Hey! Hey, Bonehead, watch this! Who am I?” Taako leaned around the doorframe of his bedroom with a spatula in each hand and smudge of egg at the end of his nose, poking out between strands of unaddressed bedhead. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to the bottom of his register. “I'm ambidextrous and dual-wielding! Is my fish okay? I'm gonna rush in! Anyway, I hope you like sausage gravy because patties were not happening left handed. But these biscuits are fucktastic.” He disappeared, then popped back a moment later, his Magnus voice forgotten. “Fucktastic is a trademark of Taako Industries.” Gone. Back. “Get out here and put on the espresso.” Gone._

_Kravitz hauled himself out of bed silently, rolling out his shoulders and fumbling into Taako's pink and green satin bathrobe. On his way to the kitchen, he absently brushed his fingers across the battered brim of the hat hanging from its accustomed hook beside the Cloak of the Manta Ray._

 


End file.
